Href

As explained in Web Design Playground

An HTML attribute on an anchor element that specifies the destination resource of a hyperlink.

The href attribute gives an HTML link its destination. Think of the <a> element as a signpost: href tells the browser where the sign points when someone clicks it. section 1.16 section 2.22

A link to another page

<a href="wordplay.html">Play with words</a> Here, href points to the local file wordplay.html, while the text between the opening and closing <a> tags becomes the clickable link. section 2.22

Build an href link in a few small steps:

• Start with an opening <a> tag. section 2.22
• Add href="destination" inside the tag, using quotation marks around the destination. section 1.16
• Use a filename for a local page or a full URL for a remote page, then add descriptive link text and </a>. section 2.22
• Check capitalization carefully in URLs and filenames; a case error can lead to a 404 Not Found result. section 2.22

A link to another website

<a href="http://wordspy.com/index.php">Visit the site</a> This time, href contains the full address of a remote page. Lowercase attribute names are the readable, maintainable convention. section 2.22 section 1.16

View the figure to see href used as an attribute that supplies an anchor’s link address. section 1.16

How Web Design Playground covers it

How deep it goes

Explains attribute syntax and local or remote destinations with examples, while deferring multiple directories and same-page anchors.

Examples

Demonstrates links to wordplay.html and http://wordspy.com/index.php, including clickable descriptive text.

What you can do after

Apply it via HTML by building links to local files or remote URLs with descriptive clickable text.

How it connects

Connects href with HTML attributes, the anchor element, URLs, local files, remote pages, and hyperlinks.

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Also explained in

• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  WordPress Power Toolkit: Harness AI to build next-level websitesThe href attribute specifies the destination URL or document location of an HTML hyperlink.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Web Design Playground, Second EditionThe href attribute is an HTML attribute that specifies the destination address of a hypertext link.

Compare how 3 books explain href →

Related concepts

• anchor elementused by · An anchor element is an HTML element that represents a hyperlink or navigation target, typically linking content to another resource or location.
• attributekind of · An attribute is a named property, value, or piece of information associated with an entity, object, or program element.
• hypertext linkused by · A hypertext link is a reference embedded in digital content that enables navigation to another resource or location.
• link elementpart of · The HTML link element declares a relationship between a document and an external resource or resource metadata.
• uriuses · A URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) is a standardized character sequence that identifies an abstract or physical resource.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Web Design Playground. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.